


how i picked you up and everything changed

by adventurepants



Category: Lost Girl
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-25
Updated: 2014-03-25
Packaged: 2018-01-16 22:34:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1364188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adventurepants/pseuds/adventurepants
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They make her with four hearts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	how i picked you up and everything changed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nextgreatadventure](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nextgreatadventure/gifts).



> So, believe it or not (believe it, though, because it's real) this whole beautiful, tender universe came from a conversation I had with my dear friend nextgreatadventure that started with me saying I didn't want anyone on Lost Girl to have a baby. So, naturally, we gave them a baby. I regret nothing. Lauren always knows best.

_I woke up long after dawn_

_20 years had come and gone_

_I know when it changed for me_

_A day in June you came to me_

-Brandi Carlile, “Caroline”

 

 

Lauren wanted a baby, and they wanted to give her everything.

Bo would go to the ends of the earth for Lauren, to hell and back, to anywhere, and when she pictures a little blonde baby with Lauren's eyes she knows she wants this, too.

Dyson thinks of all his mistakes and all his regrets, how they stack up over the centuries, how they matter less, now that he knows it all led him here. How he never thought he would be a father but when he thinks about having a baby with these women, he knows Lauren is right (she's always right.) This is the right time.

Tamsin thinks... she thinks of the feeling she keeps locked up tight inside of her, the part of herself that still can't believe she's let herself love humans, the part that would send up flares at the thought of agreeing to a human baby. Any baby. But Lauren is so sure. And Lauren should have everything she wants. And Lauren holds her hand and tells her “you don't have to be anything to this baby that you're not ready for,” and her face is so hopeful.

Technically, of course, it's only Lauren and Dyson whose presence is necessary, but they make her together. They make her with four hearts.

*

Tamsin doesn't make it to the first ultrasound appointment, not because she doesn't want to go, but because sneaky, pain-in-the-ass underfae don't always check her schedule before they show up and make a mess.

She comes home dirty and tired and cranky, and Lauren checks her over and bandages her arm, which doesn't need stitches, and then kisses her and smiles and hands her an ultrasound photo.

Tamsin looks at it for a long time. She doesn't say anything, but Lauren doesn't seem to expect her to, and that locked up tight feeling inside Tamsin doesn't know what to do. She thinks she might be scared.

“I know the baby doesn't look like much, yet,” Lauren finally says, and Tamsin shakes her head.

“No,” she says. “No, this is... it looks like a lot.”

Lauren beams at her and her hand spreads over her still flat stomach. “Anyway. Everything looks good. The baby's fine and I'm fine, and-”

“I'm sorry I wasn't there,” Tamsin interrupts her.

“I know,” Lauren says. Gentle, so gentle, and Tamsin can hardly remember what it felt like before the four of them finally came together. Can hardly remember what it felt like to think Lauren was her enemy.

“Can I keep this one?” Tamsin asks, looking at the photo again.

“Of course,” Lauren says, like she's not surprised at all, like she knows something, is sure of something, that Tamsin isn't quite able to reach.

*

Lauren buys about five thousand books on parenting, and Bo thinks it's a little bit silly, because there's no way that she needs them. Lauren's going to be an incredible mother, Bo is as sure of this as she's ever been about anything. She thinks she's probably the one who needs lessons on motherhood, and she wants to be ready, she wants to be good for this baby. She so badly doesn't want to be the weak link in their child's life.

She starts a few of the books, but makes it about half a chapter into each of them before starting to feel bogged down and stressed. She has time, she tells herself, as she puts each book away. She has seven months to be ready.

She finds Dyson on the couch reading something called _So You're Gonna Be A Dad,_ and she sighs, shoulders slumping. “Great. Everyone's super prepared except for me.” (Tamsin hasn't read a single sentence, Bo realizes, but Tamsin was raised by Kenzi—she'll be fine.)

Dyson looks up at her over the top of the book, and she can tell that he's smiling even though it covers most of his face. “Come here,” he says.

She sits down and leans into him as he puts his arm around her. She starts to read with him and it's less scary, this way, because they're together. Because they'll all be together, and their baby will be surrounded by love.

She looks up when she feels eyes on them, to see Lauren, radiant and peaceful and perfect, watching them with a look on her face that Bo recognizes. It's the look that means she needs to kiss them as much as she needs to keep breathing.

Dyson sets the book aside, a smile spreading across his face again.

*

Lauren carries the name around secretly for weeks. It could be a boy. She thinks it's a girl but it  _could_ be a boy, and she'll be so happy either way. She loves this child with everything she has.

She knows this baby like she knows herself, so when they find out, the four of them together, that they're having a daughter, Lauren isn't surprised. Just happy. Just full of love.

Dyson grabs Bo and swings her around as the doctor congratulates them, and Lauren sees Bo swipe a tear from her cheek.

Tamsin is so, so quiet, just watching the screen, and Lauren says, low enough that Dyson and Bo won't hear her over their own laughter, “I'd like to name her Mackenzie.” Tamsin looks at her and there's so much in her eyes that Lauren can't give a name to, but understands all the same. “It feels right, doesn't it?”

Tamsin nods. “Yes. It's right.”

Dyson has put Bo down, finally, and they realize they've missed something. “Tamsin?” Bo says, and reaches for her, a hand on her arm.

“Mackenzie,” Lauren says. “That's her name.”

Bo's grin is wide and immediate and she throws her arms around Tamsin, who hugs her back, eyes shut tight.

Dyson leans over to kiss Lauren's forehead. “That's her name,” he repeats, and it's settled.

When they tell Kenzi, she is still for a moment. “That's cool. You know, it's whatever,” she says, and then puts her hand on her heart and her eyes well up with tears. “Don't look at me for a second. Eyes to the back of the room.”

“So you're okay with it?” Bo asks.

Kenzi pulls Bo into her arms. “Duh. You stupid idiot. I told you guys not to look at me.”

“Sorry,” Bo says, but she's not, they're not, and Lauren rests her hand on her belly and thinks _Okay, baby girl. Our Mackenzie. We're all ready for you now._

*

“Is she old enough to hear us yet?” Bo asks, lying in bed with Lauren, her hand resting on Lauren's growing belly.

“Yes,” Lauren says, and puts her hand over Bo's. “Would you like to talk to her?”

“Yes,” Bo answers, eager and sweet, and Lauren loves her more than she'll ever be able to measure. “What do I say?”

“Whatever you want,” Lauren says. She laces her fingers through Bo's and waits, and after a moment, Bo starts to speak.

“Hi, baby. I'm Bo. I mean... well, I don't know what you'll call me, yet, but I'm one of your moms. And I love you so much, okay? I want you to know that, right from the start. Because you're so special, and I want... I want to be good at this. I want to be a good mom. I'm a little bit scared, because I've never done it before, but I don't think your mama would let me mess up too badly. She's really smart. And she's gonna be such a good mom. The best. So I just want to be at least almost as good. You deserve that. You deserve everything, like your mama.”

“Bo,” Lauren says, and her voice breaks, just a little.

Bo blinks at her like maybe she forgot Lauren was listening too.

“You're going to be an amazing mother, Bo,” Lauren says, and she knows it's true, wishes Bo wouldn't worry. Their little girl is going to be the luckiest, most loved child on the planet. As lucky and loved as Lauren feels every day.

*

Dyson and Tamsin's boss is fae, and they're partners for a reason, and so their working relationship is allowed to continue on as it has been even after it becomes public knowledge that their personal relationship has altered considerably. People leave it alone, mostly, but inevitably it comes out that they're expecting a baby, Dyson and Tamsin and the two women who come by the station sometimes. And it's not that they were hiding it—it's not that. It's just that Tamsin liked it a lot better before she had to hear twenty times a day how surprised everyone is that she's going to be a mother, and she doesn't have the energy to explain that she might not be a mother to this baby at all. It's not their business, anyway.

But she thinks, as she sits down at Dyson's desk with him after everyone else has gone home, that maybe she's being stupid. Even if she's Aunt Tamsin instead of Mom, she is part of a family, and this family is expecting a baby, and this baby is going to change everything. And she is deeply, completely, ill-advisedly in love with the rest of the baby's parents.

“So today was fun,” Dyson says, eyebrow raised, smirking at her.

She nudges him with her elbow. “Yeah.”

“You all right?” he asks, and she's too old and has spent too many years alone to ever take for granted the genuine concern of someone who loves her.

“Yeah,” she says again, and she knows she doesn't have to say anymore, not if she doesn't want to, but that's maybe why she says, gaze fixed firmly on the desk instead of Dyson, “Do you think we're going to regret this?”

And because he's Dyson, because he is patient and kind and never once what she expected him to be when they first met, she knows she can say it without it upsetting him. “Which part?” is all he asks, and she looks at him, finally.

“You know how fast a human lifetime passes by,” she says.

“I do,” he says after a moment.

“She'll be born and she'll grow up and grow old and be gone. And I know Lauren knows that, but she won't be here for it. And Bo is so young. But you and me...”

“We should know better,” he finishes.

“Yes.”

“Tamsin. Do you regret knowing Kenzi? Or Lauren?”

“No,” she says immediately. “No. But I didn't plan that. We planned this. We made this... this child that we're going to lose.”

Dyson puts his arm around her shoulders and kisses her hair, and she leans against him. Quiet, sad, sorry. “When you meet her,” he says, “you'll know it's worth it. Just like Kenzi and Lauren.”

“What if I don't?” she mumbles.

“You will,” he says, and all she wants is to believe him.

*

Bo knows that the day Mackenzie is born should be the happiest day of her life, but she hopes the happiest day is still ahead of her, because so far this one has consisted of forgetting how to breathe and being forcefully escorted out of the delivery room by Tamsin, while Dyson remains inexplicably calm as he holds Lauren's hand and tells her she's beautiful and strong and they're going to meet Mackenzie soon.

“I'm not ready,” she says miserably, her chest feeling tighter by the minute.

Kenzi holds out a cup of crappy hospital coffee, and Bo reaches for it but Tamsin swats her hand away. “Don't give her that,” Tamsin says. “You want her to explode?”

Kenzi shrugs. “Coffee always makes me feel better.”

Tamsin rolls her eyes and opens her mouth to say something to Kenzi, but then she looks at Bo. “You've got to snap out of this.”

“I didn't finish the books! I don't know any of the things I'm supposed to know! What if... what if I'm awful at this and Mackenzie hates me.”

Kenzi leads Bo to a chair and gently pushes her down, and Tamsin sighs, impatient, and sits down next to her. “No one's ready. No one's ever really ready to be a parent, before it happens.”

“Lauren's ready,” Bo says, and realizes her hands are shaking when Kenzi grabs them and they're forced to still.

“Bo,” Kenzi says. “It's gonna be okay. You're gonna be great.”

Tamsin's response is less indulgent. “You wanna make this about you? Fine. You wanna sit out here and miss your kid getting born and leave Lauren in there wondering where the hell you are that's more important than in there holding her hand, I can't stop you.”

Bo doesn't miss how Tamsin says  _your kid_ instead of  _our kid._ “You too,” she says. “She wants you in there too.”

Tamsin shrugs and looks away. “Well. Someone had to get you out of there before you freaked her out too bad.”

“I don't want to miss it,” Bo says. “I don't want you to miss it either.”

“ _I_ don't mind missing it,” Kenzi says. “All that blood and...” she wrinkles her nose. “Placenta.”

Tamsin smirks, and Bo laughs just for a second. “Come on,” she says. “Let's go see our baby get born.”

They get back just in time, Dyson and the doctor are telling Lauren one more push, just one more, and she looks up and sees them and there's a wildness in her eyes that suddenly becomes calm as she tells them, “Get over here.”

Bo holds her hand and Tamsin stays at the head of the bed, smoothing her hair back, and Dyson tells her, “You can do it, you can do it,” and then Mackenzie is coming into the world. Dyson cuts the cord because Bo can't let go of Lauren's hand just yet, and Tamsin is kissing Lauren's temple and murmuring something Bo can't hear.

When the baby is placed in Lauren's arms, healthy and perfect and her cries slowly quieting, Bo realizes she was wrong. No other day could ever come close to this.

*

Tamsin holds the baby last of all of them, and everything inside of her is on alert, everything is seized by panic, until Mackenzie is in her arms, and something in her heart opens up.

She didn't know it would be like this. She didn't know that the weight of this infant in her arms would make everything settle, would make everything suddenly make sense, but when she looks up to see Lauren smiling at her she understands, finally, that Lauren always knew. Mackenzie is awake, blinking at her, and all Tamsin can say is, “Hi, little girl. Hi, Mackenzie,” because nothing can come close to describing how she feels. How it feels to know that she loves this baby in a way she was afraid she wouldn't know how to love.

She feels like she might cry but she just breathes and breathes, watches Mackenzie's little chest rise and fall. She says to Lauren, “You could have told me, you know.”

“Would you have believed me?” Lauren asks, and Tamsin shakes her head.

“No. I couldn't have.”

*

Dyson thinks that if Hale were still here... if Hale were still here, he would laugh at him. Surrounded by women, a fearsome wolf with a tiny human daughter in his arms. Dyson looks at her little yawning face, pink and perfect, and he has to laugh too, just a little, because who would ever have known this is what he needed. He can't imagine ever wanting anyone different—not a son, not fae. Only Mackenzie.

Lauren says that she never imagined having a father for her child. “But I'm glad that it's you,” she tells him.

“I'm glad it's me, too,” he says, and it's hard to tear his eyes away from their baby but he does, for a moment, to look at Lauren. She's beautiful, even though she thinks her post-pregnancy body leaves a lot to be desired. She's wrong, and they've told her as much, he and Bo. Even Tamsin, who may never be an expert at saying what she feels, has made it clear enough in the way that she touches Lauren. Worshipfully, reverently. Lauren is a miracle. Dyson hopes their daughter will look like her.

He can remember, if he tries, that hollowness he'd carried around when his love was gone, and the completely different emptiness he'd felt later when he loved Bo and thought he had lost her. There is nothing empty in him now. Every inch is filled with this family they've made together, with this child who belongs to all of them. Lauren rests her head on his shoulder and they watch as Mackenzie blinks and blinks and falls asleep, and he will do anything to protect her. He will do anything for any of them.

They wanted to give Lauren everything, and in return, she gave it back.

 

* * *

 

_Epilogue_

 

Mackenzie knows a lot, even though she's little. Her mama always says when you have a lot of things to remember you should make a list—Bo Bo never makes lists, and that's why she's not allowed to go grocery shopping for them by herself anymore, so Mackenzie thinks her mama's probably right. She usually is.

Mackenzie knows she came from four hearts, but that she also came from Mama's tummy, which means she's human. She knows that being human makes her special. She's heard that her whole life, how special she is.

“Humans are my favorite,” Bo Bo says, holding Mackenzie in her lap. She kisses the top of Mackenzie's head and Mackenzie leans back into her and giggles. “Humans saved me.”

“How?” Mackenzie asks.

“Well,” Bo Bo says, and sets aside their well-loved copy of _What Does This Fae Eat?_ “When I was little, I didn't know I was fae. I lived with human parents who adopted me, and they thought I was human and so that's what I thought too. But when I got a little older I started to feel different.”

“You got hungry,” Mackenzie says. She's read the book and she knows that when a succubus gets hungry she needs to eat chi, and that it's really important. That they shouldn't get too hungry or else they'll get sick.

“I got hungry,” Bo Bo says. “And then I got scared. My parents thought... they thought something was wrong with me, because they didn't understand. So I had to run away.”

“Did they think you were bad?” Mackenzie asks, and rests her head against Bo Bo's chest. Her heartbeat sounds the same as Mackenzie's, as Mama's and Daddy's and Aunt Tamsin's and Kenzi's.

“I thought I was bad too,” Bo Bo says, and Mackenzie lifts her head, and blinks at Bo Bo in surprise. 

“You're not bad!”

Bo Bo smiles at her, the widest, brightest smile, and hugs her close. “I know. Guess who taught me that?”

“Who?” Mackenzie asks, though she has a pretty good idea.

“Well, first I met Kenzi, who didn't know anything about the fae, but she wasn't scared of me. She wanted to be my friend anyway. And then I met Mama, who knew lots about the fae, and she taught me that there's nothing bad or wrong about being a succubus. I thought I was a monster, but they taught me I wasn't. Humans are so special, Mackenzie. I want you to remember that, always.”

Mackenzie nods. She knows Bo Bo is special, too.

*

Mackenzie knows that the fae are a secret from most humans. She knows that when she goes to school, it's important that she doesn't talk about how Aunt Tamsin has wings or how her dad can turn into a wolf or that Bo Bo's eyes turn blue when she eats chi.

“But,” her mama tells her, “it doesn't ever have to be a secret that you have four parents. You should be proud of that. That you came from so much love.”

It hadn't occurred to Mackenzie that having four parents was different, but when she starts kindergarten she finds out that most of her classmates have two at most. “You don't have an Aunt Tamsin?” she asks, incredulous, and the other children all shake their heads. They want to know if she means she has step-parents, and Mackenzie knows all about people getting divorced and remarried and she knows that's not what happened in her family. “I came from four hearts,” she says proudly.

Mackenzie's school has an open house, for the parents to meet the teachers, and all of Mackenzie's parents go. Mackenzie wanders a few feet away from them to play with some of her friends, but she looks up when she hears the laughter of one of the moms who likes to flirt with her dad when he drops her off at school (flirting, she learned about from Kenzi.)

“So which one of you is the real mom?” Ava's mom asks, and before Mackenzie can even blink, Aunt Tamsin and Daddy's hands are on each of Mama's arms like they're holding her back, and Mama says, in a tone Mackenzie's never heard from her before, that they are all her mothers.

“Oh. Well, how does that work?” Ava's mom asks, and Mackenzie doesn't like the way she sounds at all.

“Lauren takes mornings, I've got afternoons, and Tamsin steps in for the evenings. We trade off bedtimes,” Bo Bo says, and Mackenzie knows she's being funny. Mackenzie knows if Mama wasn't mad, she'd laugh.

“My presence is largely symbolic and unnecessary,” Daddy says, and then turns around and winks at her, and Mackenzie knows it's okay.

They don't stay long after that. They came in Mama's car, but Bo Bo drives because Mama's still mad. She sits in the back with Mackenzie and Aunt Tamsin, and Daddy sits in the front.

“Sweetheart,” Mama says very seriously. “You know that being Daddy's and my biological child doesn't mean you belong to Bo Bo and Aunt Tamsin any less, right? You know that what you call them doesn't matter because they're your parents just like I am.”

“Lauren,” Aunt Tamsin says gently. “She knows.”

“I know,” Mackenzie agrees. “I didn't forget.”

Mama smiles and kisses her forehead and then she and Aunt Tamsin are looking at each other over the top of her head, the same quiet look she's seen between them a hundred times, or more than a hundred. More than she can count just yet, but she's good at math so she'll count even higher soon.

“She's too smart to forget,” Bo Bo says, and then her dad chimes in, “Like a little baby elephant.”

“Dyson, please,” her mama says, and rolls her eyes, and Mackenzie laughs and laughs and knows no family in the world has as much love as hers.

*

Mackenzie knows that even though Tamsin is the oldest person in their family, Valkyries have lots of lives and when they get reborn they're small again, so Aunt Tamsin remembers being a kid a lot better than the rest of Mackenzie's parents. She knows Aunt Tamsin had never had a real family until she was small this last time, when Kenzi took care of her like a mom.

She knows her dad is the second oldest and that wolves need a pack and that for a long time he didn't have one.

She knows that Bo Bo used to be lost and Mama used to be sad but that it's okay, now, because now they're all safe and happy and together. They made a family and then they made Mackenzie.

She knows that Mackenzie comes from Kenzi, that Lewis comes from Mama, and her middle name, Elizabeth, comes from Bo Bo, who used to be Beth. “It's not my name anymore but Beth is still part of me, like you're part of me,” Bo Bo says.

She doesn't have any names from her dad or Aunt Tamsin, but, her dad says, their names are written on her heart. (She knows they talk about hearts a lot more in her family than most others.)

She looks like her Mama, but sometimes, from the right angle, for just a second, she looks like her dad. When she gets older she'll look older, and so will Mama, and so will Kenzi, but her dad and Bo Bo and Aunt Tamsin are going to keep looking the same.

“But they'll still be super old,” Kenzi says. “Like crazy old. Old as ba-” and then Aunt Tamsin's hand is over Kenzi's mouth and Kenzi's making muffled protests and Mackenzie can't stop giggling.

“ _Anyway,_ ”Aunt Tamsin says. “It doesn't matter what we look like. Even when we look too young to be your parents, we'll still be your parents.”

“Does that mean...” Mackenzie tilts her head and thinks for a long moment. “Does that mean someday Grandma Kenzi's gonna finally look old enough to be your mom?”

“Hey, hey,” Kenzi says. “What did we say about the G-word?”

Mackenzie looks at Aunt Tamsin, who's grinning at her like they're in on a secret together, and Mackenzie shrugs. “That it's a great idea?”

Kenzi groans. “What am I gonna do with you?”

Mackenzie shrugs again, and puts on her best innocent face, the one Kenzi taught her last year. (“You're really cute,” she'd said. “That's lucky. That means you can get away with almost anything.”)

Kenzi lunges at her then, grabs her and tickles her until she's gasping for breath, and she knows, she knows, that she has the best family. That they all fit just right, no matter their shape.

 


End file.
